Nicole Callihan
From Yesteryear
(4/9)
Under the rose-
less rose bush, I mute
myself, better not
to hear the birds,
the baying of the pack
of dogs uphill.
A half dozen stone
frogs, I’m not sure
how I got here.
Middle-aged
disconcertion. Patience
turned inside out,
an iron-on eagle.
What I forgot:
a sweater. What I
forgot: my father.
What I forgot:
the easy way
of operating
in a body,
how to reach
without thinking
reach, succumb
without saying,
succumb, succumb.
Nicole Callihan’s books include SuperLoop (2014) and the chapbooks The Deeply Flawed Human (2016), Downtown (2017), The Couples (a novella, 2019), and ELSEWHERE ( w/ Zoë Ryder White, 2020). Her work has appeared in Tin House, Sixth Finch, PEN--America, The American Poetry Review and as a Poem-a-Day selection from the Academy of American Poets. She currently serves as Artist-in-Residence for Asterix Journal. Find out more at nicolecallihan.com.